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What Xenia Goodwin did when she heard a rumour Dance Academy was to be a movie

WHEN Xenia Goodwin heard a hint of a rumour that the TV series Dance Academy might become a movie she made a phone call.

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XENIA Goodwin was only 15 years old when she rose to fame as the star of television show Dance Academy.

So when Goodwin, now 22, heard a hint of a rumour that the three-season Dance Academy show (2010-2013) was going to be revived as a big-screen film she did not muck around.

Her first phone call was to the Sydney Dance Company so she could start taking ballet classes there.

When filming began on Dance Academy: The Movie Goodwin had been taking classes at the Sydney Dance Company for a year and was dancing at such a high standard that she performed all the film’s difficult choreography.

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Xenia Goodwin had ‘already decided in her head’ what would happen to her Dance Academy character Tara. Picture: StudioCanal Films
Xenia Goodwin had ‘already decided in her head’ what would happen to her Dance Academy character Tara. Picture: StudioCanal Films

“Dancing is in my blood, it’s honestly something I can’t live without. I was dancing anyway but as soon as I heard rumours, I didn’t even know if Dance Academy was going ahead, I started back dancing at the Sydney Dance Company anyway,’’ she says.

“I did all of my dancing in the film, which I’m really proud of, but I couldn’t have done it without my double doing some of the rehearsal takes because otherwise I would have had physical exhaustion.’’

Goodwin says that because the final Dance Academy season on ABC had an open-ended finale the young actor had “already decided in my head’’ what happened to her character Tara Webster, the star of the elite National Academy of Dance.

But Goodwin says writer and co-creator Samantha Strauss “did a better job’’ at not only envisaging the trajectory of Tara but also all the main Dance Academy student cast, who have all returned for the film.

“I wanted to know what would happen to the characters so it was exciting we got to do the movie,’’ she says.

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The film starts with Tara at her lowest ebb after she suffers a career-ending back injury while auditioning for the National Ballet, run by Artistic Director Madeline Moncur (Miranda Otto).

Eighteen months later, and after several surgeries, she is in the middle of a legal suit against the National Ballet for negligence that resulted in her injury.

But when Tara is offered a chance to audition for the company she trains hard for several months, helped by her housemate and company member Abigail Armstrong (Dena Kaplan) and her boyfriend Christian Reed (Jordan Rodrigues), only to fail at the audition.

A disappointed Tara decides to head to New York to be with her friend Kat Karamokov (Alicia Banit), now a big-time American children’s television star, and to try her luck in the “city of dreams’’.

Goodwin as Tara in a scene with Thomas Lacey’s character Ben from the film Dance Academy: The Movie. Picture: StudioCanal Films
Goodwin as Tara in a scene with Thomas Lacey’s character Ben from the film Dance Academy: The Movie. Picture: StudioCanal Films

“The movie is realistic because when you are no longer in school, you have to figure everything out for yourself, how much your dream means to you, how much you love something and whether you are good enough,’’ she says.

Goodwin says it was not only “a dream come true’’ that a film was made about Dance Academy but that New York was used as a location, especially iconic venues such as Times Square as well as lower and upper Manhattan.

“Going to New York meant everything, it was ridiculous being in New York, at times it didn’t feel real,’’ she says. “All these massive scenic locations were a constant adrenaline rush. I would be in the middle of a scene and forget I was in New York and then in mid-scene I would look and think: ‘Oh my gosh, there is the Statue of Liberty’.’’

Goodwin (Tara) in a scene with Keiynan Lonsdale’s Ollie from Dance Academy: The Movie.
Goodwin (Tara) in a scene with Keiynan Lonsdale’s Ollie from Dance Academy: The Movie.

Even though Goodwin has excelled with her dancing she believes acting is her future.

“I wanted to make every scene believable in Dance Academy: The Movie, I gave it everything,’’ she says.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/movies/what-xenia-goodwin-did-when-she-heard-a-rumour-dance-academy-was-to-be-a-movie/news-story/927a729f23a1fa4eb047a7641a9f9f05